Beg for It (14 page)

“Corinne. I need to see you in my office.”

Her back straightened, but she didn’t turn to even offer him a glance. She continued stirring sugar and cream into her coffee. “Sure.”

“Oh, and bring me a cup while you’re at it, would you? Black.”

Oh.

No.

He.

Did.

Not.

But he had, yes he had, and it actually made her want to laugh. Not with humor, exactly, but a thickly bubbling near-hysteria that would’ve totally wrecked her calm demeanor if she let loose so much as a single chuckle. She hadn’t turned. He hadn’t left the break room. She could feel him watching her.

Waiting.

Well, Reese could wait until an angel and the devil did the do-si-do, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting a rise out of her.

“No problem,” she answered smoothly, still without turning more than her head, ever so slightly. “Be right there.”

She waited until she heard him leave because she couldn’t trust herself to keep her hands from shaking as she poured the coffee. Some of it still sloshed over the rim. She wiped it carefully with a napkin and carried both mugs into his office. Even more carefully, she set his in front of him so that not a drop splashed.

She didn’t sit.

“The financials from last quarter,” Reese began, then paused.

Corinne said nothing.

“They’re in good shape.”

“Well,” she said, “I’d expect them to be. You did have me redo them in the new program you prefer.”

Never mind that Stein and Sons had been using the same software for the past five years, a program she’d personally picked out because it was easy to use and had all the functions she needed. The program Reese was insisting they switch to was glitchy and far less user-friendly. If he was making busywork for her, he was going to be disappointed to discover that she wasn’t going to complain, at least not to him.

When he didn’t say anything else, didn’t even sip the coffee he’d asked her to serve him, Corinne tilted her head. “Is there something else?”

“No,” Reese answered in a tone that sounded more like yes.

She didn’t wait for him to add anything. She left his office and went into her own, firmly shutting and locking the door so he couldn’t burst in on her. Not that he would, she reminded herself. He would simply message her and expect her to drop everything and run in to service him.

She would do it too, Corinne thought with a curl of her lip. In that moment she couldn’t tell whom she hated more. Reese for putting her through this rigamarole, or herself for letting him.

Chapter Eighteen

Before

Thanksgiving at his parents’ house is always a good time. Food, music, laughter. Games of cards spread out on the dining room table with plates of pie and mugs of coffee. Reese’s family is enormous and they all gather in the old farmhouse every year.

He’s never brought a girl home before, and everyone notices but nobody gives him a hard time. Well, not too much. They all like Corinne, of course they do. There’s nothing about her that isn’t easy to like.

Corinne’s camped out on the sofa with one of Reese’s cousins, looking at the photo album from her recent wedding. Reese has brought Corinne a mug of coffee and a piece of pie.

“No,” she says, offhandedly, “not pumpkin.”

It’s not a chastisement or anything. Not even a command. He’s so used to her gentle corrections that it doesn’t even seem strange to him that he takes the plate of pumpkin pie back to the kitchen and returns with a slice of apple that she takes from him, her face tipped up so he can kiss her before she goes back to looking at the pictures.

It feels natural to take a place on the floor at her feet, especially since with all the guests in the overfull living room, seating is at a premium. And Reese is content to lean with his back against her legs, her fingers every so often brushing the back of his neck. When she hands him her empty mug, he takes it without question to the kitchen for a refill.

His father has been watching him, apparently. At the counter as Reese fills Corinne’s mug, his father takes a seat at the kitchen table. He gestures to Reese’s mother for her to cut him a piece of pie, even though the tins are directly in front of him, and she has to come around the table with a plate to do it.

“Sit,” his father says. His mother flees the kitchen.

“I have to take—”

“She’ll wait,” his father says. “Sit down.”

Reese sits, wary. He and Dad haven’t been getting along for a long time, but he’d thought that at Thanksgiving there’d be peace, at least for the night. “Yeah?”

“How’s it going? Living with her.”

“Good. It’s all good.” Reese turns the mug in his hands.

“You find a job yet?” Dad digs into the pie with his fork, chewing steadily without looking away from Reese’s face.

“Not yet. I’m looking into some bank loans for school, though. And I have a lead on some part-time work.”

“You’re living off her? She supports you?”

Reese frowns. “Well…yeah, I mean…I’m going to get work, Dad.”

“But until then, you’re the housewife?” His father’s disgust is clear in his tone.

Reese goes cold inside. Then hot. His throat and cheeks burn, but he keeps his voice steady when he answers, “I take care of things around the house, yeah. Corinne goes to school and works.”

“Pussy.” Pie flecks his father’s lips and clusters in the corners of his mouth.

Reese looks away. “Don’t.”

“She has you trotting to and fro, bringing her coffee and pie? What else does she have you doing? Folding her panties?”

“Sometimes wearing them,” Reese replies, voice cold and hard and sounding somehow distant, even to himself.

He means to be shocking. To stun and hurt his father. It appears to have worked, because Dad’s mouth works, but nothing comes out.

“I thought you’d just be happy I’m not gay.” Reese wants to get up from the table. He wants to take Corinne’s coffee to her and sit there while his family laughs and talks; he wants to play a killer game of Spoons and then have another piece of pie. He wants to go home with the woman he loves and sleep beside her and wake up in the morning, and if she asks him to do a load of laundry, he’ll do it. He’ll do whatever she asks. “I don’t expect you to understand. But, Dad, it’s not your business.”

“It’s disgusting.”

Reese flinches, though the words are no surprise. “I love her. I want to make her happy. That’s all.”

“I love your mother, and I want to make her happy, but you don’t see me prancing around in her underwear!”

“Reese?” Corinne is paused in the doorway, looking concerned. “Hey, is everything okay?”

“You ready to go?” Reese stands, leaving the coffee on the table.

Corinne’s look of concern changes to surprise. “Sure. If you want to.”

“Yeah. I’m ready. Let’s go.” Without a look at his father, Reese ushers her out through the family horde, weathering the hugs, kisses, and goodbyes. In the driveway, he holds out his hand for her keys and slides into the driver’s seat, although it is Corinne’s car and she usually drives.

“What happened?” she asks as he steers them down the long, winding country lane toward the main street. “Did you and your dad have a fight?”

“Something like that. Nothing new. It’s fine.” Tight-lipped, Reese switches on the radio so they don’t have to talk.

At home, she tells him to go take a shower. He doesn’t want to. They showered just before leaving for his parents’ house. He’s not dirty. He and Corinne face off in the bedroom; Reese feels alternately hot and cold. Itchy in his skin. He wants to pace.

“I told you to do something,” Corinne says sharply. “But feel free to keep arguing with me, and see what happens.”

He can’t stop himself from arguing. He keeps thinking of his father’s words and the look of disgust and disappointment on his face. “I don’t want to take a fucking shower, Corinne! I just want to go to bed.”

She gives him a cool shrug. “Fine. But you’re not getting into bed with me without taking a shower first. Go sleep on the couch. No. The floor.”

He pauses. She means it, he’s sure of that. She teases him sometimes, sure, but right now there is nothing but calm steadiness in her expression as she stares him down.

He does not have to obey her. He could, in fact, force his way into the bed, and there’d be very little she could do to make him get out of it. They both know, though, that he won’t do that. Breathing hard, angry, his nails biting into his palms, Reese sneers.

“Fine. I’ll take a fucking shower.”

“Go.”

In the bathroom, he strips out of his clothes and throws them defiantly on the floor, then gets under the spray before it’s even hot. Cold water needles him into a gasp. It warms quickly, but even so, that first onslaught is enough to take his breath away and leave stinging patches all over. Minutes in, the steam wreathes him, and in the fog and the heat, Reese lets his forehead fall against his arm as he leans against the shower wall. The water washes away most of his anger, leaving him with a hollow feeling in his stomach.

He dries off and hangs up the towel, then puts all his clothes in the basket. Naked, he goes to the bedroom. Corinne is propped up in bed, reading, and when she sees him she pulls back the covers and pats the bed in invitation.

Wordlessly, Reese slides in beside her. She puts an arm around him, letting him press his face against her breasts. Her hand strokes down his back in patterns of three, then one then three again. She’s soothing him.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I needed the shower.”

“I know, puppy. It’s okay.” She kisses his wet hair and makes a noise, prompting him to move so he can look up at her. She caresses his face. “I’m sorry you and your dad can’t seem to get along.”

He talks to her for a long time about his father.

When he goes quiet, Corinne says, “I think you should go talk to him. Be the first to reach out. Didn’t you tell me that you guys used to go to Triton’s a lot? Invite him to lunch or something.”

Surprised and angry that she’s not taking his side, Reese sits up. “What? Why? He’s not going to listen to anything I have to say. He’s made his judgments, and that’s it as far as he’s concerned. I’m not going back to work on the farm. Is that what you want me to do?”

She hesitates. “It’s a job—”

“No! Shit, Corinne. I hated working on the farm. If you don’t want me to live here anymore, just fucking say so.”

She’ll be pissed off now. She’ll discipline him for the language, the tone, the attitude. She’ll hurt him, maybe, and then maybe she’ll fuck him. Suddenly, Reese wants that more than anything.

“I love having you here. Don’t be rude. And if you don’t want to work on the farm, you don’t have to. But I think you do need to go talk to your dad and try to mend things with him.”

“Are you ordering me to?”

She frowns. “Of course not.”

He quiets and sits with his back to the headboard, their shoulders touching. He doesn’t look at her. The calm he’d gained from the shower is gone; his stomach is tense and tight again. When finally he slides beneath the covers and turns on his side, facing away from her, Corinne says nothing. She turns out the light. She spoons behind him, her hand flat on his naked belly. She kisses him between the shoulder blades.

“I don’t want you to hold onto a grudge that you might regret, that’s all.” Her soft words float through the darkness over him. “I’m looking out for you.”

“I know.”

He doesn’t listen to her, though, and Thanksgiving Day is the last time he speaks to his father until his mother dies of a stroke two months later.

Chapter Nineteen

“He’s trying to get under your skin, that’s all.” Caitlyn had listened to Corinne’s tirade over dinner.

Overcooked pasta and limp salad, Caitlyn’s work, still appreciated even if it hadn’t been top-notch cuisine. The kids had scarfed down everything on their plates and begged to disappear into the TV room to play video games, and although she usually tried to keep Friday night family night to honor the Sabbath, Corinne had allowed it tonight. She’d been too agitated to really eat, though she appreciated baby sister’s attempt at repaying her for the use of the guest room for what was becoming an indeterminate amount of time. Now she pushed her plate away.

“That is not how we work,” Corinne said.

Caitlyn swiped a piece of garlic bread through the sauce and crunched it, talking around the food. “That’s not how you
used
to work, maybe. It’s obviously how he wants it to work now.”

Corinne had never talked much to her sister about the way things had been. At the time she and Reese were a couple, Caitlyn had been way too young. By the time her younger sister had been old enough for them to share sexy stories, Corinne had been married to Douglas and fully entrenched in the vanilla life of a suburban wife and mother. She’d never spoken much to anyone about her relationship with Reese, actually, too aware of how not…normal…the other mothers in the playgroup would have thought it was to bend your man over and fuck him in the ass.